Books

Starter Books on Ancient-Future Faith

Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World Robert E. Webber

The late Bob Webber wrote the first popular book about the church fathers as a source for contemporary ministry. This volume talks about their relevance for theology, church, worship, and evangelism.

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Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers Christopher A. Hall

Hall, provost of Eastern University, worked closely with Thomas Oden to birth the massive Ancient Christian Commentary series. In this book, Hall introduces the methods the fathers used to interpret Scripture.

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Getting to Know the Church Fathers: An Evangelical Introduction Bryan M. Litfin

A teacher at Moody Bible Institute, Litfin knows the suspicions many evangelicals have about the fathers. This book introduces beginners to 10 key figures from the early church.

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A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church Calvin R. Stapert

Calvin College professor Stapert is a Bach expert, but he’s also well informed on what early Christian writers had to say about music. He’ll tell you why Christians first sang the psalms around the dinner table, and what crisis prompted the first hymn-sing inside a church.

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Early Christian Fathers (Library of Christian Classics, volume 1) Edited by Cyril C. Richardson

It’s 54 years old, but this volume is still a handy and reliable collection of key early Christian writings, including the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Didache, and selections from Irenaeus’s Against Heresies.

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Previous top 5 lists had books about the civil rights era, social justice, church history, popular culture, the Civil War, apologetics, atheism, and sex.

Neff, editor-in-chief of the Christianity Today Media Group, blogs at Ancient Evangelical Future.

Christianity Today briefly excerpted Ancient-Future Faith and interviewed Hall and Litfin about their books.

Also in this issue

The CT archives are a rich treasure of biblical wisdom and insight from our past. Some things we would say differently today, and some stances we've changed. But overall, we're amazed at how relevant so much of this content is. We trust that you'll find it a helpful resource.

Cover Story

Help for the Sexually Desperate

Carbonated Holiness

News

Sacred Harp Resurgence

News

Not Your Father's L'Abri

The Grace Escape

IRS Rules to Remember

California Dreams

Bookmarks

Why Evangelize the Jews?

Fiction from the Headlines

News

Bearing the Silence of God

Death and Resurrection

Count Your Surprises

New Atheists Are Not Great

News

Why Culture War May Never End

Our Geopolitical Moment

Review

Haunting Salvation

News

Church in State

Porn's Stranglehold

'These Guys Are Really Screwed Up'

Review

Pushing Daises

What Makes a Church Missional?

News

News Briefs: March 01, 2008

Editorial

Hating Hillary

The 8 Marks of a Robust Gospel

News

Go Figure

News

What <em>Reveal</em> Reveals

News

Passages

News

Quotation Marks

Q&A: John Dilulio

A Kinder, Gentler Shari'ah?

News

Capital Doubts

$300K Settlement

News

Premeditated Mobs

News

Taliban Targets

News

Foreign Correspondence

News

Post-Mayhem Woes

View issue

Our Latest

Excerpt

There’s No Such Thing as a ‘Proper’ Christmas Carol

As we learn from the surprising journeys of several holiday classics, the term defies easy definition.

Glory to God in the Highest Calling

Motherhood is honorable, but being a disciple of Jesus is every woman’s primary biblical vocation.

Advent Doesn’t Have to Make Sense

As a curator, I love how contemporary art makes the world feel strange. So does the story of Jesus’ birth.

Advent Calls Us Out of Our Despair

Sitting in the dark helps us truly appreciate the light.

Public Theology Project

The Star of Bethlehem Is a Zodiac Killer

How Christmas upends everything that draws our culture to astrology.

News

As Malibu Burns, Pepperdine Withstands the Fire

University president praises the community’s “calm resilience” as students and staff shelter in place in fireproof buildings.

The Russell Moore Show

My Favorite Books of 2024

Ashley Hales, CT’s editorial director for print, and Russell discuss this year’s reads.

News

The Door Is Now Open to Churches in Nepal

Seventeen years after the former Hindu kingdom became a secular state, Christians have a pathway to legal recognition.

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